


Teen Wolf, Season 1, Episode 12, Code Breaker

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s01e12 Code Breaker, Meta, Nonfiction, Season Finale, Season/Series 01, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 12:39:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16095857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.





	Teen Wolf, Season 1, Episode 12, Code Breaker

Open to Chris seeing Scott’s werewolf face. Honking his horn, he yells, “Move!”, and Scott jumps on a bus and leaves.

Over in the field, Stiles refuses to leave unconscious Lydia, and Peter says he doesn’t have a choice. He does allow Stiles to call Jackson and tell him where Lydia is.

Back to the buses, Allison stumbles out, and Chris rushes over to keep her upright. “It’s alright, honey. You’re okay. You’re okay, baby.” He leads her to the car.

Most of the time, the only endearment Chris, Victoria, and Gerard uses is ‘sweetheart’. I’m wondering if these others were scripted or if the emotionalism of the scene had Bourne have Chris say them. Kate uses more, but she often favours ‘sweetheart’ and ‘sweetie’.

In the woods, Scott runs until he has a breakdown.

Meanwhile, carrying the unconscious Lydia, Jackson begs her to stay with him, and getting to the dance, he pleads with others to help him and get help.

In Roscoe, Peter says, if Lydia lives, she’ll become a werewolf. Then, he makes a sexist, annoying joke alluding to menstruation.

I’ve read several posts about how Peter supposedly never lies, and I don’t buy it. Here isn’t a _good_ example of why I don’t believe it, but it is one of the examples nevertheless. I’m convinced Peter knew Lydia was a potential banshee.

Whether she would have activated on her own when she was older, I’m not sure, but he was counting on the bite to either activate her now or kill her.

Her being someone he could use to manipulate Stiles was icing on the cake. There are other ways he could have gotten Stiles to help him.

He knows his time is short-lived. There are hunters, including the one who killed almost everyone in his family, in town. Even the more reasonable ones like Chris, they don’t care whether the humans he killed were innocent or not, just that they were human. Add the fact that, even if he did tell the truth about being semi-controlled during the time he attacked the school, none of the Argents would care if even they did believe him. The baby of the family, the possible future of the family legacy, was in that school.

Lydia was always his backup. He wouldn’t have counted on being able to control a werewolf from beyond the grave. But a banshee? Yeah.

Over at the Argent house, Chris is literally breaking stuff. I’m not sure if it’s dishes or furniture accessories along the line of vases.

Kate is amused by this, and at her lie Allison found out rather than being told, he lays into her for giving Allison hints about their family. Then, he asks why she’s back. “You hate this town. I had a network of names I could have called a lot closer than you. You called first.”

Starting to clean up the mess with his bare hands instead of doing the non-dangerous thing of getting a broom and dustpan, Chris gives his baby sister a warning by telling her every death was someone connected to the Hale fire.

Either the janitor wasn’t real, or his body hasn’t been found.

I’ve said before: Chris has always known Kate was the behind the fire. He hates her, and he’s limited her contact with Allison, but she’s more of Gerard’s heir than he ever has been, and also- she’s his sister.

Chris knows Gerard is cruel and ruthless, but unlike with Kate, he genuinely believed his father upheld the code. He applied his love for Allison to Gerard’s feelings for Kate. Gerard’s one soft spot, his one blind spot, in Chris’s mind, was Kate.

It doesn’t excuse it, but it’s part of the reason Chris freaks out whenever Allison does something even mildly rebellious.

He believed, if Kate ever did anything else as bad, he could and would convince Gerard, but he simply hoped she never would. Whatever else she is, she’s his sister, and he didn’t want to do such a thing to their father. He knows how much it’d destroy him if he had to face such a thing about Allison, and he doesn’t want to be the one who destroys not only such a great man but his own father. Gerard might not have been the father he wanted, but he does believe Gerard is the father he needed.

That’s why he does this: He orders Kate to take Allison out-of-town.

Most of it is to protect Allison, but even knowing what Kate did, even feeling as if she might deserve death, he’s protecting his sister, Gerard’s heir, from Peter’s justice.

Upstairs, Victoria is packing for Allison.

There’s something questionable about most of Victoria’s scenes and the character herself.

I don’t believe Derek bit her. I don’t think the letter Allison read was the one Victoria wrote. Before all that, I don’t believe Victoria cut herself with a knife just to talk to Melissa. For a long time, I was convinced Chris and Victoria might have faked her death, but even if she did survive, I don’t believe Chris/Melissa (ugh) would have happened if he’d known she was still alive.

Again, I’m not intending to ship-shame anyone. Everyone ship whatever they want. If I don’t like a ship, however, I’m probably going to end up saying so at one point or another.

Scott’s always going to hate her for trying to kill him, and as a result, I think his narration often has her doing and saying things she didn’t.

Here, she asks if there’s anything in particular Allison wants her to pack, and then, she tries to laugh off Allison’s, “I just saw my boyfriend turn into a werewolf.” Allison’s phone rings, and grabbing it, Victoria turns it off, but she doesn’t pocket it. When Allison asks if it was Scott, she tells the truth: No, it was someone named Jackson.

Allison asks what’s going to be done to Scott, and Victoria says they have, “A sort of moral code we follow. Especially when they’re that young.”

She says this all a part of a longer conversation, and when Allison declares, “I want to know now! Right now!” Victoria gets frustrated. She raises her voice somewhat, and she gives a speech about Allison isn’t ready, yet, and people outside the family aren’t ready for Allison to know certain things, either. Her voice and face softens, and she says staying quiet is the best protection.

“Do you understand?”

Nodding, Allison gives a tentative smile.

Then, Victoria barks out, “Say it!”

I believe the scene was accurate to this point. Victoria and Chris did become genuinely abusive later on, but here, I don’t believe Victoria did this.

Afterwards, Victoria smiles. “That’s my girl. I’ll pack a few warm coats. It’ll probably be cold up there.”

Most likely, after Allison’s non-verbal agreement, Victoria said the above.

Later, outside, Allison and Kate are in the car. Utterly ignoring Kate, Chris softly promises Allison they’ll talk about everything later. He manages to smile for her. “Call me when you get there.”

There’s a moment where I think Chris was supposed to touch Allison’s cheek, but Bourne’s fingers didn’t make contact with Reed’s face.

When Kate drives away, suddenly, Victoria is standing next to Chris. She asks if Chris can find the alpha, and he answers, no, but Scott can.

In a parking garage, Peter drags Stiles to a car. In the trunk, Nurse Jennifer is still playing dead. Either Peter thought she was dead after Derek knocked her out, or he ‘killed’ her, and she’s been biding her time to start over as Teacher Jennifer. He withdraws a bag.

Over at the clinic, it’s raining, and Scott is sitting curled up on the floor.

In the Argent car, Allison is remembering what all happened at the dance.

Back at the clinic, dogs start barking.

Meanwhile, there’s product placement for AT&T, and Stiles tries to lie he doesn’t know Scott’s user name and password. Peter’s response is to get physical.

At the hospital, Jackson sees Lydia in a hospital bed, and Sheriff S isn’t professional in his questioning in the slightest.

Sheriff S was abused, too. Unlike Chris, he largely kept this out of his own parenting.

But he’s never liked Jackson. Something about Jackson has always set him off.

Here, he believes Jackson might have hurt Lydia, and even if Jackson didn’t, he doesn’t know about Jackson and Lydia breaking up. Jackson’s only sixteen, but Sheriff S was younger than that when he got glass through his chest in an effort to protect his mother. His hatred of men who lay their hands on women is a personal, visceral one, and he has a low opinion of men, even if they’re still boys, who don’t protect the women/girls in their life.

Jackson reveals Lydia went with Stiles to the formal, and this isn’t Jackson’s fault, but now, Sheriff S hates him even more.

Sheriff S turned out to be a great father, but most of the time, he didn’t feel like that. Later on, there will be a time he genuinely thinks his son might be a horrible person, and it’s understandable why he feared this was the case, but he’s never going to forgive himself for it.

In the garage, Stiles asks what happens after Peter finds Derek.

Stiles believes Peter killed Laura. Inaction is often different from action in the court of law. Stiles left Derek to be potentially tortured and killed, but he wasn’t responsible for Derek being captured. If Peter kills Derek, though, he’d have played an active part by helping Peter find him.

Then, he tries to get Peter to promise to leave Scott alone.

He’s willing to actively help kill Derek if it’ll keep Scott safe, but there will come a time he won’t sacrifice Derek for anything or anyone. Even in the case of Sheriff S, Derek would sacrifice himself for Stiles’s father before Stiles himself had to make such a decision.

Peter insists he needs both Stiles and Derek to take down the rest of the people responsible for the fire.

So, Stiles reveals Scott’s username and password.

“His username is Allison? His password is also Allison?”

Well, that’s incredibly creepy, though, it’s creepiness would probably keep most people from guessing it, so, you know, strong username password combination, at least.

“Still want him in your pack,” Stiles inquires.

Outside, Scott howls/roars/growls at the moon.

Hearing this, Derek responds.

Interestingly, Peter didn’t try this. He must have suspected Derek might not respond to him.

In the garage, they discover Derek is being kept in the Hale basement. Then, they hear the exchange, or part of it, at least, between Derek and Scott.

Meanwhile, Kate has dropped Allison off at the hospital. Allison looks in at Lydia, and there are flash-second scenes of Lydia thrashing around in a completely blood-covered room.

Back in the car, Kate insists all werewolves, including Scott, do things like this.

Allison doesn’t question whether Lydia will if she becomes a werewolf.

In the garage, Peter ruins Stiles’s keys and starts to leave. Stiles asks if Peter isn’t going to kill him.

“Don’t you understand yet? I’m not the bad guy here.”

Up until Lydia, he wasn’t. He was controlled, he has half-feral, and with this being fictional, I don’t have a problem with him killing the people who killed almost his entire family.

He was free of all control and sane when he made the decision to attack a teenage girl. He might not have known exactly what sort of mental torture using her for backup would be for her, but I doubt he thought she’d just find herself doing the resurrection when it came time and, then, go on with her normal life.

Next, Peter offers Stiles the bite, and despite being tempted, Stiles turns it down.

During this, Peter also says he bit Scott due to needing a new pack.

He might believe this, but I still tend to think he did either due to Scott’s asthma or Scott being near Laura’s body.

Over to Scott, he breaks into the Hale house undetected.

At the hospital, Sheriff S is furious with Stiles, but he quickly calms down.

For all I don’t like Natalie, I do like the scene of her in the background with Lydia. She does love her daughter, and in her own way, she tries to do what’s best for her, she’s just not a good parent. She’s not abusive like Chris and Victoria can be, but she either doesn’t pay enough attention to her daughter or she insists on only focusing on certain things.

A scene in season six where she tries to genuinely talk things out involving the supernatural with Lydia is awesome, because, finally, she wasn’t going, ‘Nope, the supernatural doesn’t exist, you aren’t supernatural, if I give you material possessions, will you please just be my pretty little girl again?’

It’s established Scott isn’t at the hospital.

Over at the Hale house, the other hunter from last episode tries to torture Derek with a bat, and revealing his unchained hand, Derek knocks him out. Then, Scott’s shown.

At the hospital, Sheriff S wants Stiles to go sit with his friends, and Stiles admits he and Scott know Derek better than they let on.

On the positive side, if Stiles and Derek ever get together, it’ll be after Sheriff S has gotten to know Derek himself. He’ll likely have a much better reaction than he does here.

Stiles realises Sheriff S has decided the Hale fire was definitely arson, and Sheriff S tells him it was likely organised by a young woman. Stiles asks who, and Sheriff S isn’t near as sarcastic as I’d be in answering, “If I knew that, she’d be in jail.”

It’s revealed said mystery woman is probably in her late twenties, and Sheriff S mentions a distinctive pendant.

He gets a phone call, and everything comes together in Stiles’s mind.

At the Hale house, rather than helping get the rest of the chains off, Scott insists Derek promise to help protect Allison. He also declares Peter was lying about not knowing what he was doing when he killed Laura.

Back at the hospital, Jackson offers to drive Stiles, and Stiles lays into him. He claims half of this is Jackson’s fault.

No, it’s not, but given the drinking earlier, please, stick to not letting Jackson drive.

Thankfully, getting Jackson to produce the keys, Stiles takes them. “I’ll drive.”

Except, neither of them will right now as Chris has showed up with some hunters in tow.

Oh, for God’s sake. If Natalie weren’t in Lydia’s room, would he go so far as to kidnap Lydia? Going further, would he’ve tried everything he could to make sure she died rather than possibly heal from the bite?

Remember inaction and action are different. If a person who’s bitten suffers medically, there’s a chance denying medical treatment might result in them dying, whereas, giving them medical treatment and letting them heal might turn into another werewolf running around. So, kidnapping would be active, but simply not doing anything about the dying person lying in one’s basement, including giving food, water, and a sterile enviroment- technically, the bite would be responsible for killing her, not him. Code upheld.

He asks about Scott, but he’s capable of multi-tasking.

Stiles and Jackson both claim not to know where Scott is, and Chris has them dragged away. Wherever in the hospital this is, it has a lock on the door.

In the Hale house, Scott shows a picture of the deer with a spiral on it. Deaton told him, three months ago, someone came into the clinic asking for a copy. That someone was Nurse Jennifer.

Derek manages to get the chains off himself.

Back in the hospital, Chris manhandles Stiles. He talks about seeing both a rapid dog and experiencing a werewolf friend try to kill him during the full moon. He claims he put a bullet in said friend’s head, and there’s nothing in canon to indicate he’s lying.

Personally, I think Gerard put in the bullet in the friend’s head. Chris couldn’t, but seeing Gerard do it was what made Chris strong enough to put bullets in others. I’ve always wondered, if Chris had discovered Allison was possessed, would he be able to kill her?

Stiles is unimpressed. He admits he had to handcuff Scott to a radiator. “Would you prefer I locked him in the basement and burn the house down around him?”

Chris recoils.

Pressing on, Stiles asks what happens if someone does break the code. “Your sister.”

Chris realises he might not be able to protect Kate anymore. Part of it is a relief, and part of it is another way he’s failed both his little sister and Gerard. He could never be the son, the Argent hunter, Gerard wanted. He couldn’t be the big brother his baby sister needed. Now, Gerard might lose Kate, and in Chris’s mind, it’s all because of all the ways he himself has failed them both. He knows he lost Kate a long time ago, but now, he’s probably going to lose his father, too.

In the woods, Derek and Scott are walking when Derek stops. He thinks everything was too easy, and Scott goes on a rant about how none of this has been easy.

Cue Allison being guided on how to shoot Derek by Kate.

Derek does everything he can to protect Scott, but when Allison approaches, Scott refuses to try to even get away. She orders him to stop lying, and she makes it clear she isn’t going to accept him trying to protect her as the reason. He insists everything he said at the formal was true, and she responds she doesn’t believe him.

Exasperated by this teenage drama, Kate demands Allison shoot Scott before Kate shoots herself.

Horrible character, but so fun to watch.

Allison balks. She says she thought they were just going to catch them.

“Did that. Now, we’re going to kill them.” She shoots Derek.

When she points the gun at Scott, Allison tries to stop her, and she knocks Allison to the ground.

Appearing with a gun, Chris makes it clear he’ll shoot Kate if he has to.

In his mind, she’s his mess, and maybe, he can spin a story of her being the victim of friendly fire. Gerard’s daughter went out the hero Gerard saw her as, and it’s tragic, but there’s no one to take vengeance on.

He doesn’t want Kate’s place, and he’s worried Gerard might try to get Allison to fit into it, but he’ll deal with all that if it comes.

“I know what you did.”

It’s a warning and an explanation.

She responds, “I did what I was told to do.”

Like I said, he believes the best of Gerard, and so, he hears a lie when, for once, she’s being completely honest with him.

I am curious why she doesn’t expand on her statement. Is it that she knows she probably can’t convince him, or is she trying to protect her brother? Chris is the different-coloured sheep. Gerard moulded her, but she isn’t trying to mould Allison. She is trying to guide Allison into being the best version of the person she thinks Allison wants to be. She doesn’t particularly care about Victoria one way or another. Chris, though, I wonder if she views him more as the baby, the one who needs protection, despite his age.

During this scene, the French motto is spoken, and I’m not going to type out the French words. It translates to, ‘We hunt those who hunt us.’

The code’s often not applicable with these words. They only kill the supernatural that’s either an immediate threat to human life or has taken human life.

Fine, but just because Joe Werewolf over there has killed or is trying to kill a human doesn’t mean Joe Werewolf is hunting, attacking, or even spares a thought towards any Argents.

Allison didn’t so much as change the code as she changed the motto to actually fit it.

Kate lowers her gun, and having been nice enough to let this family drama play out, or just gotten bored at the anticlimax of it all, Peter dramatically creaks the door Hale house door open.

During this, Chris orders Allison to get back.

How about, ‘Allison, that bow and arrows you’re carrying? Aim, and if you need to, start shooting.’

Though, he doesn’t need to, because, along with her gun-armed father and aunt, Allison is ready.

Now, if only Peter wasn’t so fast in running around in circles around them.

He knocks all three down, and grabbing Kate’s wrist, he forces her to fire until the gun’s empty, and then, he forces her to drop it. Throwing her onto the porch, he drags her inside.

Without her bow and arrow, Allison follows.

Inside, he has his claws against Kate’s throat. “She is beautiful, Kate. She looks like you. Probably not as damaged.”

He says he’s going to give her a chance to save Allison. If she apologises for what he did to his family, he won’t kill Allison, too.

Looking at her niece, looking at the girl who might have been her daughter in another life, she gives Allison a sincere, “I’m sorry.”

Peter kills her, but even knowing who the apology was really for, even knowing she died remorseless for her actual crimes, he honours his end. She took his nephew away, and giving her a small taste of losing her niece was all he really needed to satisfy his need for vengeance against her. Killing her wasn’t vengeance. It was justice for the others.

He makes as if he’s going to kill Allison here, but when Derek and Scott come in, he chooses to fight them and let her run. The fact he never tries to kill her after coming back is proof he wasn’t going to here.

He starts to loose control of his shift, and this is why he bit Lydia.

It’s a misconception he wants to be an alpha. I don’t believe that scene of him killing Julia/Jennifer on the nemeton happened.

Laura’s spark is corrupted within him, but maybe, it can purify itself within Derek.

The plan was always to die after he carried about his vengeance/justice. Lydia gave him a chance to come back uncorrupted and be the uncle Derek needed again.

Meanwhile, Stiles is driving Jackson’s car. Jackson protests the way Stiles is driving.

This is rich coming from someone who was recklessly driving it himself a few episodes ago.

Stiles asks if Jackson paid for the car.

No.

“Then, shut up.”

This is fair, but it’s worth noting Stiles didn’t pay for Roscoe, either.

They arrive at the Hale, and the fight’s been taken outside.

Stiles throws a glass container at Peter, alpha Peter catches it, and Allison shoots it with an arrow.

Finally, the Molotov cocktail works, and when Jackson throws another one, Peter’s consumed by fire.

Shifting back to an incredibly burned human, Peter falls.

Allison comes over to Scott, and he turns his werewolf face away, but catching it, she turns it towards her. Aw.

He shifts back, and they kiss.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because, I love you,” she answers.

I imagine Peter’s reaching out to Derek with the pack bonds, all, ‘Okay, this is tedious. Come put me out of my misery, now.’

Chris regains consciousness, and his face shows he’s not exactly fond of the scene happening, either.

Scott realises Derek is walking over to Peter, and he goes over, but he doesn’t get close. He pleads with Derek to not take his chance to become human again away, but he doesn’t actually attack Derek or rush over so that he has a chance of striking first.

Is it possible Derek did give Scott a chance, Scott found himself poised to kill Peter, and then, he found he couldn’t?

Personally, I’d find Scott more sympathetic if this were the case, but would that be something Scott regretted so much or was so conflicted over that he’s rewrote things?

As it is, Peter isn’t kind in it, but he gives Derek the encouragement needed, Derek kills him, and then, with red eyes, Derek announces, “I’m the alpha now.”

If Allison weren’t around, would Chris try killing Derek here?

Later, Sheriff S and deputies find Kate’s body but not Peter’s at the Hale house. She’s wearing her pendant.

Someone wrote a meta about how Chris left Kate’s body with the necklace as a sort of peace offering for Derek. Derek could do whatever he wanted to it. If Derek had done something, if Kate was just suddenly missing, Gerard might not have come.

Maybe it was a sign of Derek healing just a little bit, that he didn’t care enough to do anything, that he didn’t feel the need to give her a burial, or maybe it’s just another way he’s broken that, even in her death, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything to Kate. Either way, he wasn’t going to degrade her body or rob her family of closure. He’d let them give her a proper burial and say goodbye.

Over at the hospital, Scott and Stiles have snuck into Lydia’s room, but they don’t bother to even try to cover the windows. Peeling off her bandage, they discover it’s not healing.

Okay, I know neither of them is going to do anything, but: Two boys sneak into the hospital room of an unconscious girl, lock the door, and then, lift her gown a bit and remove a bandage.

This is an uncomfortable scene.

Scott declares she’s not a werewolf, and he’s right, but the method of him coming to this conclusion is faulty. He doesn’t know all alpha bites would heal the same way his would if a person is going to be a werewolf. He doesn’t know that other people might not suffer a more severe reaction than he did before they heal and become a werewolf.

Next, Jackson goes to the Hale house, and showing another time skip, it’s not a crime scene, nor is Kate’s body there. Derek is practically fully blended in with the shadows. Jackson wants the bite.

Refusing to use the stairs, Derek comes down, and with red eyes, he gives an incredibly creepy smile. Jackson’s terrified but doesn’t run, and Derek produces fangs.

At the Argent house, Chris is reading about Kate in the newspaper. Interestingly, there’s something about a South American drug ring being exposed, too.

I don’t think Cora somehow ending up in South America was planned at this point, but within the show universe, there’s something important about South America.

Phone in hand, Victoria says, “He’ll be here in two days.”

Saying they shouldn’t have done it, he bemoans the stupid necklace.

It is not taking the body himself or leaving it behind that he’s conflicted about?

Throwing the newspaper away, Victoria firmly declares the police would have put it together eventually. “Don’t think for one second she’s taking the fall for something she didn’t do.”

He says they’re going to be pariahs, and she counters they’ll handle it.

“And Allison?”

“She’ll learn.”

Victoria has always been more of a daughter to Gerard than Chris was a son. I believe Chris genuinely loves her, but part of the reason he choose a wife like her is, because, he could give Gerard another daughter, a daughter who was truly worthy, unlike Kate.

Now, Gerard wants them to stay, and she trusts him. Chris wants to take Allison and go, but even more than he trusts Gerard, he trusts Victoria.

For some reason, I thought she hugged him in this scene. I don’t know if I’m confusing it with another scene or if it’s just a weird idea that popped into my head.

She asks about Scott, and he says Scott has other things than them to worry about.

Speaking of Scott, he’s up on their roof with Allison in his arms under the moonlight.

I’m kind of surprised no neighbours have called or dropped by, all, ‘By the way, I know this is a difficult time, and if you know about this, sorry to bring it up, but are you sure your daughter and that boy are safe sitting on the roof during the night?’

Fin.


End file.
